mhbasye Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 I tried to post this yesterday, but can't find my post, so please forgive me if this is a repeat: I am new to Geocaching. I've only tried three "treasure hunts", but was only successful on one. My Garmin Nuvi is great for driving to the location but then I have to hunt over an area perhaps the size of a large residential lot, or even maybe the size of a football field. In fact, I have no idea how far away from the cache I might be. I sorta thought that the GPS would guide me closer than that. Am I being unrealistic? Quote Link to comment
+Entropy512 Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 I tried to post this yesterday, but can't find my post, so please forgive me if this is a repeat: I am new to Geocaching. I've only tried three "treasure hunts", but was only successful on one. My Garmin Nuvi is great for driving to the location but then I have to hunt over an area perhaps the size of a large residential lot, or even maybe the size of a football field. In fact, I have no idea how far away from the cache I might be. I sorta thought that the GPS would guide me closer than that. Am I being unrealistic? If you specifically bought it for geocaching - yes, you did. If you bought it for driving and are trying to repurpose it for geocaching - few driving-oriented GPS units do any better. Driving-oriented GPSes (Nuvis and TomToms) tend to do a lot of low-speed position filtering and often will "jump" to the nearest road - it is possible to geocache with them but fairly difficult. I think the Nuvi 500/550 can disable some of these annoying filters but it still can't compare to a trail-oriented unit for geocaching. Trail-oriented GPSes (like the Garmin Oregon, Dakota, 62, and 78) are great for geocaching but tend not to do so well for driving. Quote Link to comment
+dfx Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Many people use the Nuvis for geocaching quite successfully. It's just a matter of learning how to live with its limitations and how it behaves. Switch it to off-road mode AND pedestrian mode for geocaching, that should help a little. Quote Link to comment
+mpilchfamily Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 For Geocaching its good to have a good handheld GPSr. A car nav system is good for getting you to the parking location but you need a hand held unit to get you to GZ. The units Entropy mentioned are great units and also cost more. Like him i'm a Garmin fan. For a while now i've been using an eTrex Legend H. Its a great unit and only cost me $109. Though my needs have gotten to the point where i need a color screen and want the ability to go paperless. Or in my case not have to juggle between my Legend and my iTouch. For the first few month i Geocached i was using my Nuvi 1300. It was doable but a pain. You gotta put it into Pedestrian mode when you start looking for the cache. You'll need to make sure you zoom in on the map as far as you can. Which puts the distance scale in the lower left at about 50 ft. It will be good enough to get you close enough to GZ where you stop looking at the GPSr and start looking for possible hiding places. Quote Link to comment
+CacheFreakTim Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 The problem with the Nuvi's (other than the 500/550) is they do not have a Geocaching mode or a Compass. While it is possible to use to Geocache it won't be easy. you really need that compass mode to get in close otherwise like you mentioned you will be searching over a large area. I would pick up a Nuvi 500/550 or maybe a Dakota or Oregon if you really want to cache with it. Quote Link to comment
+mpilchfamily Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 The problem with the Nuvi's (other than the 500/550) is they do not have a Geocaching mode or a Compass. While it is possible to use to Geocache it won't be easy. you really need that compass mode to get in close otherwise like you mentioned you will be searching over a large area. I would pick up a Nuvi 500/550 or maybe a Dakota or Oregon if you really want to cache with it. That reminds me. While in Pedestrian mode the Nuvi keep the map facing up as North. So its handy to have a compass with you so you know your heading in the right direction. Quote Link to comment
+Tobias & Petronella Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 I'm going to keep it short and simple this time. We use the Nuvi 1350T. When we are walking, we use the Bicycle mode set to Off Road. For more reading go to this page. Then check out our profile page. Car unites are not for everyone and some car unites are better than others. Quote Link to comment
+Woodstramp Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 When I set up my Nuvi 200 for paperless caching about 2 years ago I was able to find most of the caches that I went for. To overcome the lack of compass screen I'd just view the map in 2D mode, zoom in as need be as I closed in. About that same time frame someone here posted a link to a custom geocaching "vehicle". It was a download that you put in your Nuvi. In 2D map mode, it would appear as a large, thin circle that surounded a small dot. This worked great for close zoom levels because this special vehicle didn't cover most of ground zero when you got really close like the Garmin standard blue car did. I'd post a link, but I've since lost it. Maybe someone here still has a link to it. Quote Link to comment
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